Is a data plan a necessity with a tablet? I can get a data plan with the ATIV but not with the Surface, deal breaker for anyone?

Does the Surface have been updated to get rid of the unwanted crashes when opening apps?

RT vs Pro, is Win8 Pro any useful on a tablet?

How does SmartGlass act between my Xbox and my tablet? I've read a lot a bad stories about it.

Battery life?

You don't have to answer all of these questions, but if you can relate to one of these, feel free to do it.
The more answers I get the better I can make a decision and it would certainly help some other users who are struggling to choose between those two or any other tablets.

I've had no crashes opening apps. Though it seems the apps that come with it as opposed to those I've downloaded take longer to load.

The Smart Glass works great with my Xbox. When testing playing video I shot on the Surface to the Xbox, short test videos of around 10 seconds or so, went with no problem drilling down to the camera roll. But when I tried the same with a video of around 8 minutes I got an error. But after I went to desktop mode and moved it to the videos folder it pushed over to the Xbox just fine.

My battery life has been good. I mostly just check mail, surf and play wordament. It goes about 10% an hour or 10 hours. But when I was playing the free part of Angry Birds Star Wars it went down to about 8 hours.

When I've taken it out with me to the local sports bar to use while watching football, I've had no problem jumping on their wireless and using it. Not sure if I'd really need it to have 4g or a data plan unless I was going to use it while in a car.

apps crashed during our testing, including Internet Explorer and the stock camera program. Similarly, a few froze, forcing us to perform a hard reset. The camera app, in particular, went berserk several times when we tried to switch to video mode. Mind you, we haven't experienced problems like this on any other Windows 8 device we've tested. The Metro version of IE also froze more than once, and occasionally the screen failed to respond when we tried to swipe in from the side to toggle through open apps. The accelerometer, meanwhile, is often slow to pick up on changes in orientation. Worst of all, we noticed these issues on two different review units. A Samsung rep told us the company doesn't have anything to share regarding a possible firmware update, though AT&T confirmed to us that there are indeed some software improvements coming.

Maybe there have been software improvements since then, but there's a reason that all of these other CloverTrail devices keep getting delayed.

Edit: Or another good quote about CloverTrail, referring to the Asus W510 which uses the same SoC:

Here's where it really gets tricky: Intel built the better SoC, but Microsoft built the better device - and that device happens to use Tegra 3. The days of Intel simply building a chip and putting it out in the world are long gone. As it first discovered with Apple, only through a close relationship with the OEM can Intel really deliver a compelling product. When left to their own devices, the OEMs don't always seem to build competitive devices. Even despite Intel's significant involvement in Acer's W510, the tablet showed up with an unusable trackpad, underperforming WiFi and stability issues.

Thanks. That doesn't sound good for a $750 investment. I was going this cause I like the keyboard. Like the Lenovo TPT2 but don't see a poelrtable keyboard for it yet. The Vivid Tab is just a little high for me at a grand with the keyboard.

If you have internet sharing on your phone why pay an additional $10-20 to use your own data on a tablet? I know it's not always on but it seems like a waste. Several hundred more for a tablet with 4g and several hundred more a year. I can tell you 920 on ATT and Surface is just as good as my home WiFi, speed wise. I have never had issues with Surface locking up with any apps. Battery life is great for such a large screen. I can stream 6-8 hours with one charge. You can't go wrong with Surface. Now if I had it to do over again, I would have wait for Pro. Rt is nice, but limited in a few areas.

the main thing you want to remember is that they are two totally different devices...one is running RT and the other windows 8. Just remember that if there are ANY and I mean ANY at all classic x86 applications you want to run then don't go for RT. I'm not trying to bash RT as I think its a great system and functionally it works the same as win8 but just remember that outside of office, you cannot run any other x86 applications. Personally I would go for the surface just because from what I have read with the ATIV is that it has had a crapload of driver issues and it looks like its being returned..I mean, I don't usually read too much into newegg reviews and various forums, but when EVERYONE (almost) that has bought one, said they are returning it because of driver issues and then when HP and Lenovo are holding back their atom tablets to work on drivers because there seems to be news going around that the drivers for clovertrail need work. Personally, I'm looking into the HP envy x2 and possible the acer iconia w510 because they seems to suit my needs better.

I'm an engineering student so I need a couple of applications that are not on win RT like putty, notepad ++, light matlab use, win scp, 7zip, utorrent, programs like those, that you can run on an atom and windows RT won't work for me. Think of the surface like a glorified ipad, its useful for productivity work because of office, which is a huge plus over the ipad, but the other apps are lighter apps that won't do as much as a true pc, so take that as you will. For a lot of people this will do all they need for a computer, for me it won't though. Just my two cents...